I have had trouble falling asleep (but not staying asleep) for as long as I can remember. I find that melatonin helps sometimes or listening to boring books on tape. I also have anxiety problems and took SSRI's for a while and found that that made the biggest difference in my ability to fall asleep. I went from taking over an hour to fall asleep to about 10-20 minutes and I would say I still fall asleep that fast about 80% of the time even though I am no longer taking the meds. Treating your anxiety with medication might not be something you are interested in, or might be something you are already doing, but I just thought I'd share my experience.

I guess I'm lucky, I haven't laid awake trying to sleep in a while. I probably knock out after 4 or 5 minutes unless something is rustling my jimmies.

I'm also almost always asleep within 5 minutes. I don't sleep much so I'll be up til 3-4am or later and I get up by 8am for work. Getting up is sometimes hard, but I'm very rarely tired during the day and I don't rely on caffeine.

If I can't sleep and it is getting way too late, I'll have a glass of scotch. For some reason that or watching TV knock me out. I don't have a TV anymore so scotch it is.

If I go to bed and can't fall asleep within ~10 minutes I either get up or get busy in the sheets. I hate being in bed awake just staring at the ceiling.

If I have to work downtown or have an appointment or anything I need to get up and be somewhere for the next day = automatic insomnia because it's much harder to shut my mind down with the anticipation of enforced getting up and going the next morning, even if it's somewhere pleasant.

But because I mostly work from home I usually don't feel any kind of pressure to get up or anything, so I'm usually asleep in like ten minutes. The odd time I'll toss and turn some just because I'm not tired when I go to bed or whatever.

Reading helps. Or used to, until I got a kindle. It's much handier for reading in bed (books are heavy! book lights are awkward and my dog eats them!), but I think the light from the screen messes with me. Plus it makes it too easy to dick around on the internet or play word games or otherwise overstimulate myself. I keep telling myself I need to stop using it at night, but then I get all indignant because this is the only time I get to myself all day and when else am I supposed to shop for shoes and read random wikipedia articles?

One more thing, it helps to have a routine before bedtime, so that even if you're not sleepy, just by going through those steps helps your brain realize it's time to shut down.I usually read or stay on the internet in the evening, at around 10:30ish I go take a shower, brush my teeth, put on face lotion, go to bed, read Harry Potter in german for 10 minutes, my eyes start closing and after I turn off the light I'm gone in 2 minutes. My brain knows that when it's shower time, it's also sleep time (which is funny when I shower during the day and I find myself absentmindedly brushing my teeth and putting on my sleep t-shirt... only to realize that it's 10 am and I'm not going to bed!)

_________________I dunno, I guess I just get enthused over eating big ol' squishy balls. - Interrobang?!

Samsies! I swear I've been a cat in a previous life. I would and could sleep 12+ hours a day if I didn't have to be a responsible adult. My weekends are normally spent sleeping in, taking naps, and staying up real late. That is my ideal sleep schedule.

ColdandSleepy, I agree with you. Exercise during the day does not make me tired! My body may be tired, but not my brain.

It probably takes me 15 - 30 minutes to fall asleep on a normal night. But I've def had many restless nights and episodes of my mind racing.

Have you tried changing your bed? Having a Tempurpedic is not only a comfort thing for me, it's also really awesome for not disturbing or being disturbed by your partner. We never wake each other up anymore with getting in and out or trying to get comfortable. We also don't toss around so much either.

What about burning incense? Candles are too bright for me, but incense are relaxing and not a flame.

It normally takes me forever, lately what I've been doing is putting on MST3K on my laptop and fall asleep watching it. It has to be the more boring movies they've done, obviously. I have never seen the entirety of Red Zone Cuba because it puts me out pretty fast.

_________________I was really surprised the first time I saw a penis. After those banana tutorials, I was expecting something so different. -Tofulish

my biological clock is innately whack. since i was about 13 or 14, my body has insisted that the right way to live is to fall asleep at four in the morning and wake up somewhere around 12:30 in the afternoon. but because i was a civilized american, i always had to wake up at around 7:00 in the morning, and that led to some serious misery. people like to tell you that you can force yourself into a new routine, but that is a lie. i fell asleep at four in the morning no matter how little sleep i'd had the night (or two or five or fifteen nights) before. and then i found melatonin, and everything changed. it really fixed me. i wish i didn't need it, but i've tried everything else under the sun. i take it every night between 9:00 and 9:30, and i fall asleep a little before midnight and wake up between 8:30 and 9:00 a.m., which is exactly what i've always wanted. i work from home now, so i feel like it's o.k. to stay up doing other things until i feel like i really can't keep my eyes open for one more minute, and that makes a difference, too. if i get into my bed before i'm ready to pass out, i start thinking and can't stop, and then i'm up until dawn. and without the melatonin, even for one night, i go right back to a nocturnal schedule.

_________________"rise from the ashes of douchebaggery like a fancy vegan phoenix" - amandabear"I'm pretty sure the moral of this story is: fork pants." - cq

nice to see so many other people are like my and have issues falling a sleep. I have a habit for doing all the things you're not suppose to before bed, but I don't think they would help. It takes me hours to fall asleep so sometimes I get up and jump on the computer or try to get homework done. I think the only time I was ever able to fall asleep quickly was after morning yoga. Other than than it doesn't matter how tired I am as soon as I lay down I am feeling wide awake.

i lay down on my back and fall asleep asap. if i have something bothering me, i practice the deep relaxation techniques i learnt for labor (from the hypno-birthing cds) and fall straight asleep as soon as i start. self-hypnosis is great.

we haven't played rock band in a while, which kinda sucks. and if unclegramps wants to play a dancing game after 9:00, i go away or up to bed. maybe i'm on a better schedule now, so we might do an experiment introducing music to me later. we'll see.

he's been playing dance central and rock band blitz lately, and i did have starships in my head for the past few days, but with the melatonin, it didn't take long at all. i think i've been taking 3 mg.

I've found that taking some calcium with magnesium an hour before bedtime makes me fall asleep quickly. I've also tsken MidNite in the past and it worked well too. My issue is more not being able to fall back asleep after waking up in the middle of the night.

I've found that taking some calcium with magnesium an hour before bedtime makes me fall asleep quickly. I've also tsken MidNite in the past and it worked well too. My issue is more not being able to fall back asleep after waking up in the middle of the night.

that's why mid-nite has a low dosage of melatonin and is dissolvable. so you can take it in the middle of the night when you probably don't have water available and don't want to get out of bed.

you might want to experiment with taking a larger amount of melatonin instead of the 1.5 that's in the mid-nite. (besides saving tons of money. damn, those mid-nites are expensive. even with a coupon.)

also, one of my bottles of melatonin has B6 in it, and i've already known that i don't eat enough B6, due to having developed kidney stones back in '99. (B6 helps to dissolve the calcium oxalate kind.) so i did some searching. apparently B6 helps you produce your own melatonin. who knew!? not me. take your B6, maybe it'll help you get back to sleep when you wake in the middle of the night a few months down the road. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18250494

I usually fall asleep pretty easily, but that's because I usually don't try to sleep until I'm tired enough that I'm fairly sure I'll fall asleep easily. I rarely stay asleep more than a few hours at a time though; I have to wake up, get up, do something for a couple minutes (like go to the bathroom or drink a glass of water or something), then go back to sleep.

I've also learned the hard way that if I don't do these things -- that is, if I try to go to sleep when I'm not tired, or if I try to sleep "through the night" instead of getting up when my body wakes up in the middle -- then in the morning, I feel like I haven't slept at all and I'm grumpy and miserable all day. So it's pointless for me to even try to fight it and sleep like a normal person :P

_________________Man, fork the gender card, imma come at you with the whole damned gender deck. - Olives Did you ever think that, like, YOU are a sexy costume FOR a diva cup? - solipsistnationblog!FB!

My husband is one of those miracle 5 sec sleepers, and I can take 20 mins-2hours+. I have started to think my monthly cycle might play into the episodic insomnia I seem to get. What has helped:

using ear plugs and eye mask: similar to other routines mentioned, the pattern of putting them on tells the brain it's time to shut down. Noise can keep me from drifting off, so the ear plugs help there, and hearing my internal heart beat/blood flow quiets the brain activity.

visual technique #1: focus on the back of the neck

visual technique #2 (works better for me): imagine the backs of the pupils falling backwards into a mini hammock. at the same time relax the jaw and tongue.

My husband is one of those miracle 5 sec sleepers, and I can take 20 mins-2hours+. I have started to think my monthly cycle might play into the episodic insomnia I seem to get. What has helped:

using ear plugs and eye mask: similar to other routines mentioned, the pattern of putting them on tells the brain it's time to shut down. Noise can keep me from drifting off, so the ear plugs help there, and hearing my internal heart beat/blood flow quiets the brain activity.

visual technique #1: focus on the back of the neck

visual technique #2 (works better for me): imagine the backs of the pupils falling backwards into a mini hammock. at the same time relax the jaw and tongue.

Before I started using melatonin I would be up until 5 am the night before I got my period without fail.

_________________"I'd rather have dried catshit! I'd rather have astroturf! I'd rather have an igloo!"~Isa

"But really, anyone willing to dangle their baby in front of a crocodile is A-OK in my book."~SSD

I pretty much just don't sleep much, I'll just keep working until I physically cannot take being awake, pass out for a few hours, and then start over.

if I've been getting like 9hrs/night it will take me at LEAST an hour to fall asleep, my brain gets stuck in infinite loops really easily, the only thing that shuts my brain up is really unhealthy levels of sleep dep!!

_________________Space has stared into the tiny syrup holes of our shame and it does not judge us. - Amandabear

My husband is one of those miracle 5 sec sleepers, and I can take 20 mins-2hours+. I have started to think my monthly cycle might play into the episodic insomnia I seem to get.

Before I started using melatonin I would be up until 5 am the night before I got my period without fail.

fascinating. do you also have a short luteal phase? B6 extends the luteal phase to be a more normal 14 days, so if you have a shortage, not only will your LP be shorter, but you won't have enough to make your own melatonin. it makes sense that it would happen at the end of the LP.

My husband is one of those miracle 5 sec sleepers, and I can take 20 mins-2hours+. I have started to think my monthly cycle might play into the episodic insomnia I seem to get.

fascinating. do you also have a short luteal phase? B6 extends the luteal phase to be a more normal 14 days, so if you have a shortage, not only will your LP be shorter, but you won't have enough to make your own melatonin. it makes sense that it would happen at the end of the LP.

I have a short cycle, period, though that didn't used to be the case. Something to investigate. I eat a pretty good variety of foods with B6. Maybe I will experiment with melatonin. The only time I've tried it was for a long haul flight, and it didn't really do diddly.

i wonder if your body has trouble absorbing B6. hmmm. definitely look for the melatonin with B6 added, that way you can kill 2 stones with one stone.

take it before you do your nightly stuff. (as long as the nightly stuff doesn't take more than 15-20 minutes) that way you're ready when you get into bed.

i was taking my (natrol i think it is?) it's a 5g extended release melatonin with B6, but i think i wasn't getting enough at the beginning of the night, cause it was taking longer than when i had been taking my non-extended release ones, so i think i am going to cut my natrols in half and my other 3g non-extended release ones and take one of each, so i have some B6, 2.5g of extended melatonin and 1.5g of immediate melatonin and see how that works out for me. it'll be nice to fall asleep fast but also not wake up in the middle of the night to pee, and also get the benefit of the B6, and maybe i'll eventually have an LP that's longer than 12 days.

Depends on both my stress level and what I was doing right before getting into bed.

If I'm stressed out about, I don't know, anything, we're looking at a minimum of about an hour. It used to be longer but I have an easier time now because I sleep with my baby (who is warm and snuggly) and because I have a story I think through which is pleasant, absorbing, and yet not interesting enough that I have to stay up and stay engaged with it.

On a really good night, this can combine to have me asleep in about 15 minutes.

I have horrible sleep problems. It takes me forever to fall asleep, and I wake up a ton overnight. I did a sleep study and found out I had on average 15 arousals an hour!!! They did not have any answers of course. I always just get more and more questions. No sleep apnea, no restless leg...and since I sleep walk and have night terrors I can't take prescription sleep medications.

So all y'all insomniacs and people with sleep issues I'm right there with you!!!

_________________~Sweet songs the youth, the wise, the meeting of all wisdom. To believe in the good in man.